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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27932236">Runnin' Down A Dream</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacasandravens/pseuds/alpacasandravens'>alpacasandravens</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Dreamsharing, M/M, cas is in dean's dreams, ish, set during seasons 5-6, soft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:34:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,496</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27932236</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacasandravens/pseuds/alpacasandravens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Cas enters Dean’s dreams, it is an accident. He flies to Dean’s motel room, intent on updating him and Sam about the ongoing search for God. The update, of course, is irrelevant. God is nowhere to be found, but Cas has hope, and he has another lead. The fact that he wants to see them, wants to see Dean, is of no consequence. </p>
<p>heavily based on/inspired by Dean's line in 5x16 "Cas, you gotta stop poking around in my dreams."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester, mentioned Dean Winchester/Lisa Braeden</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Runnin' Down A Dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>no this doesn't make sense. it's 1am and i wrote this in the last hour and a half. working title was 'dreamsharing like it's 2010.'</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Soft early afternoon light falls through the kitchen window, shadows from the leaves of the old oak tree outside dancing over the tile floor. Dean stands at the island, chopping onions on a small plastic cutting board. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This isn’t his house, he thinks. But no, it is, it definitely is.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He runs out of onion to chop and scrapes it into a large bowl. There’s ground beef and breadcrumbs and spices already in the bottom, and something green - just a little bit of jalapeno, he remembers now. He’s making burgers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pushes the sleeves on his henley over his elbows and reaches into the bowl, kneading the mixture together. It is cold against his hand, strangely familiar though he doesn’t remember having a burger that wasn’t from a diner or a fast food joint in years. But yes, he does. He makes burgers pretty often in the summer, to use the grill while it’s nice out. Sam will be over later, and they’ll all eat together on the back deck. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something is playing in the background, a song Dean can’t quite make out until he suddenly knows exactly what it is. It comes into focus, a weird way to think about a song but now he can hear the words perfectly when before it had been hazy guitar riffs. Tom Petty is singing about chasing a dream wherever his heart leads him, and Dean hums along, smiling softly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Dean,” Cas says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cas wasn’t there until suddenly he was, and Dean can’t even bring himself to be surprised by this, because it was weirder when Cas wasn’t there. Where else would he be?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, buddy.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean’s hands aren’t in the burgers anymore, and they’re clean like they never had been. And that’s good, because he needs his hands, so that he can wrap them around Cas’s waist as he pulls him in for a kiss that lasts a little longer than it needs to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a simple kiss, one that speaks of familiarity and routine still shot through with affection. It’s something Dean has done a thousand times, and he can remember each time like it’s just now happening, but when he pulls away he can still see the look on Cas’s face, like he never thought he could have this. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean hadn’t, either. Part of him has always had this, can’t think of a time before the present, before soft rock on the radio and warm summer light and Cas here with him. The other part, the one he wants to forget, remembers fear and pain and so many deaths. He shakes his head, and they are gone. There are no angels, there is no apocalypse. There is just him and Cas, here, in the kitchen. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re happy here,” Cas observes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Dean thinks his face is fit to split in two from how big he’s smiling. “I really am.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wish we could stay.” There is pain in Cas’s face, and Dean doesn’t know why. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you mean?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cas smiles with half his mouth. “Nothing,” he says, pressing a kiss to Dean’s mouth.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And then Dean wakes up. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>***</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The first time Cas enters Dean’s dreams, it is an accident. He flies to Dean’s motel room, intent on updating him and Sam about the ongoing search for God. The update, of course, is irrelevant. God is nowhere to be found, but Cas has hope, and he has another lead. The fact that he wants to see them, wants to see Dean, is of no consequence. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He arrives, and Sam is gone and Dean is asleep, and Cas is content to wait. He doesn’t sleep, but that’s okay. Waiting until morning is barely the blink of an eye in his celestial timespan. But before long, he notices Dean’s eyes flicking back and forth rapidly beneath his eyelids, picks up on his increased heart rate. There is something akin to fear on Dean’s sleeping face, and Cas just wants to help. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He touches two fingers to Dean’s forehead. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean’s heart rate doesn’t slow and his eyes don’t still because Dean is no longer there. Or, he is, but Cas isn’t in his motel room anymore. He is in a different motel room, older, more lived-in. Dean is there, and there are two Deans, layered on top of each other like two reels of film being played at once. One is the Dean Cas knows, nearly thirty and in the leather jacket he uses to shield himself from the world. The other is a kid, barely more than fourteen but still so clearly Dean. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Both Deans stand in the room, back straight and face expressionless even as their eyes begin to fill with tears. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You left your brother here?” John Winchester is shouting, angry and violent. “I thought I told you to look after him, Dean.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I only went to get dinner,” Dean says. “I wasn’t far.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quick as anything, John’s hand darts out and catches the side of Dean’s face, which snaps to the side, expression never changing. “Don’t you talk back to me, son. If I tell you to watch Sam, you watch him. Do you understand?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean stands, unmoving, and nods. “Yes, sir.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam isn’t there, but somehow Cas knows he is just down the hall, buying a soda from the vending machine, and that by the time he returns John will be calm and Dean will never let on that anything happened. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He moves toward Dean, to push John away from him, or maybe to comfort him, but before he gets there, the scene changes. The motel room melts into the darkness of a place Cas doesn’t recognize but what Dean’s mind tells him is the empty space under the bleachers of a high school football stadium. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It is dark down here, and dusty, clumps of dirt and dust and old candy wrappers pushed into all the small corners, globs of chewed gum stuck to what passes for a ceiling. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean is still before him, both layers still hovering over each other, but the child Dean is older now, sixteen or seventeen. There is another boy with him, leaning against a wooden bleacher support beam, legs bracketed by Dean’s. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A car horn cuts through the silence, and Dean jumps far enough back that he isn’t touching the other boy anymore. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s just some kids,” the other boy says, hair wild and eyes still glazed over. “C’mere.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean is panicking, eyes darting around, hands wildly smoothing his hair back into place, checking to make sure his layers of flannels and jackets are all still in place. “Shit. I gotta-” He turns to leave so fast he nearly trips over his own feet. “Fuck.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cas steps forward, catching Dean just as he runs past him. “It’s okay,” he says softly. “This is just a dream, Dean.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean’s eyes search his face wildly. “It’s not okay,” he says. “Dad’s gonna kill me.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He runs away, toward the car and his father and whatever lie he’s cooking up, and Cas follows him, but the dream is already changing around them so that Cas catches up to him in a parking lot, knees pulled to his chest and back leaning against a solitary light post. Its bulb flickers, casting indeterminate shadows over Dean, at once his Dean and a Dean in his early twenties. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean is crying, furiously wiping the tears off his face with his sleeve. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fucking stupid of me,” he mutters. “I shoulda…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cas sits down next to him and gently pulls Dean closer, until Dean is resting against Cas’s side instead of the light pole. “It’s okay,” he says again. It’s a dream, so he doesn’t know if Dean can feel it, but he puts his arm around Dean anyway. He hasn’t known Dean long, but Cas wants to protect him from the world so fiercely. The least he can do is protect him from his own traumatic memories. “It’s okay,” he repeats, whispering it to Dean as he cries until the parking lot fades from view and he opens his eyes to morning light in a motel room. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>John Winchester isn’t the only thing Dean has nightmares about. Sometimes, he sees his mom, burning up on the ceiling and knowing there isn’t a damn thing he can do to stop it. Other times, it’s monsters, coming for him or worse, coming for Sam. But John is by far the most frequent.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If Dean knows what Cas is doing, that he tries to be there to help Dean through the dreams, he doesn’t say it. Maybe, Cas thinks, Dean doesn’t remember. That’s probably for the best. He doesn’t want to explain why it’s so important to him that Dean be okay, that the ghost of his father never again hurt him. Why it hurts something inside Cas to see Dean upset, and why he attempts to fix it in a dream because he can’t in real life. But other times, selfish times, Cas hopes he does remember, that he knows that his past isn’t something he should have to live with on his own. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Once, Cas tunes into a very different kind of dream. He doesn’t know, isn’t expecting anything different, when he slides inside Dean’s dream. He isn’t even in the room with Dean, he is halfway across the country following up on a different lead, but he projects his consciousness out and suddenly he is standing in a motel room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This isn’t any of the motel rooms he has seen before. It doesn’t have the unmistakable clutter that comes along with Dean’s memories, the fast food bags and duffel bags with half-folded clothes that meant he and Sam have been there a while. This motel room has present-day Dean and a dark-haired woman, both very naked and engaging in rigorous sex. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cas barely has time to think that first, if this was not a dream that bed would not survive, and second, that he needs to get out of here now, when Dean notices him. Something clearly passes through Dean’s mind, but Cas doesn’t know what it is because he is too busy mentally yelling at himself to </span>
  <em>
    <span>leave right now</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but then Dean shrugs and says “Get over here, Cas, three’s company.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Absolutely no time passes between that sentence and Cas’s view of the room changing. Now, he is on the bed, and Dean is beneath him, looking up at him with almost a challenge in his eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I shouldn’t be here,” Cas says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why the hell not?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean doesn’t give him time to answer, sliding a hand through Cas’s hair and pulling him down for a bruising kiss. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That, Cas decides, is crossing a line, and he pulls himself out of the dream, Dean fading away and being replaced by a park where Cas is sitting on a bench, and all Cas can think is that he wishes it was real. That he could have stayed. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Cas is more careful with Dean’s dreams after that. He still stumbles into one of those sometimes, and every time Dean invites him into bed. Cas always leaves.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t do that. Not when he’s not asleep (he doesn’t sleep), not when Dean thinks Cas is just another figment of his imagination. It’s not fair. But Dean never says anything when he’s awake, and Cas can’t, and nothing changes. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Things change, after. After Sam falls into the Cage and Cas dies and God brings him back. After Dean settles down with Lisa. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cas only enters Dean’s dreams once, then. He can’t let himself stay close to Dean, not when Dean is so determined to move on. Not when Dean has Lisa and when she loves him and it makes Cas feel like his heart is being ripped out of his chest while he’s still alive. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he allows himself once.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean is in his backyard - Lisa’s backyard - putting the lawnmower into the shed. It’s still too early for the heat to come out in earnest, so Dean isn’t sweaty after the hard work. Cas walks out of the house that Lisa is not in, and Dean smiles in a way he never has when he sees Cas awake. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mornin’, sunshine,” Dean says, dropping a kiss on Cas’s cheek like it doesn’t mean anything. “Sleep well?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cas looks at him. “Dean, you know I am not Lisa,” he says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Dean says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Even in dreams, you should be faithful to her.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why are you here, then?” Dean stands just in front of Cas, too close and not close enough. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was weak,” Cas says. “I wanted to see you.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You said this was a dream, right?” Dean asks. “So you’re not real.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am real.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re my imagination. So it doesn’t matter. None of it matters.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean leans forward, kissing Cas gently, a question. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You said it was a dream,” Dean says when Cas pulls back. “Why can’t I have this, even in my own head?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Cas isn’t strong enough to leave, not after that, so he lets Dean kiss him again, open-mouthed and wanting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Cas says afterward, just before he leaves. “It won’t happen again.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know if Dean dreams of him again. He stays out of Dean’s head while he is with Lisa, while he picks up the pieces of his shattered life. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That doesn’t last, because nothing lasts for them, nothing except Dean’s desperate kisses in dreams, the way he is brave enough to hold Cas’s hand, to hug him frequently and without cause, and to bury it all so deep upon waking that Cas doesn’t think he’ll ever talk about it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They sit by a lake in Dean’s dream, Cas’s head on Dean’s shoulder and their fingers loosely intertwined. A beer sits in the cupholder of Dean’s chair, but he doesn’t touch it, and because it’s a dream it never grows warm despite the comfortable temperature. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wish this was real,” Cas says. He has long since given up hope of Dean acknowledging these dreams, stopped trying to even pretend he is a naturally-occurring part of Dean’s dreamscape. “This is all I want for us.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For a moment, Cas thinks Dean didn’t hear him, but then he says, “This is real, Cas.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fireflies come out of the grass around the lake, dancing above the ground like a beautiful kind of magic, the kind they would never see in their lives of blood and witchcraft and death. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.” In the real world, Cas is working with Crowley, planning on betraying him and becoming a new god. Planning on making the universe a safe place for Dean, even if Dean will hate him for it. There is no place for softness in their world. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It is,” Dean insists, and Cas thinks maybe he knows it isn’t too, and he wants to let himself pretend.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I love you,” Cas says. “And I’m sorry.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pulls himself out of the dream before he has time to regret it. He has work to do. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>yes i am working on farmer!dean (my spn wip). however i am incapable of writing a scene longer than 500 words today, so we get this instead. comments and kudos make my day.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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